Alright, so one of the things I know about you is that you have a master's degree in organizational leadership and with the emphasis in servant leadership and that's been something that I've experienced from you just being your friend. You're always like other people first, so much so that I'm like I need to start like doing what this dude does. Because my friends have always joked about calling me Ryan Delegator. I'm like that's funny. That's funny. That's funny, but it's not funny.
I was like wow maybe I need to. A major portion of leadership is delegating and the ability to delegate. But I've just enjoyed your heart with being a servant and so what is something that you know now that you wish you would have known like when you started out your career in law enforcement?
Oh, I think if I know now that I probably would have said to, like you're saying, what would old Bobby tell young Bobby back in the day and that would probably be buy Apple stock when it was a dollar forty seven. No, I'm just kidding. No, you're not kidding. No, you know me. I don't really. I'm joking. What I would tell young officer Ramsey would be work the problem, don't let the problem work you. And I'll expand on that.
So I think in the course of my lifetime and I did come to realize this during the course of my career, but I think when you're young, especially as a young man, I was always super, you know, I always wanted things, you know, quick. I was just, you know, I always wanted to achieve the next rank or get to the next assignment and do those types of things. And sometimes when you're not living in that moment, you're not appreciating the moment for what it is.
So if you have that gear, I think that I probably missed out on a lot of things and a lot of things that I thought were really, really heavy. You know, time has a way of ironing out wrinkles. So what seems like something that might have been super, you know, such a major problem. And then you look back and just think like that was really nothing. So don't get all worked up over silly things. Just kind of, you know, work the problem and work through it.
And you know, in the end, things are going to work out as long as you as long as you do the right things, you know, that's, you know, as long as you keep your integrity in check and you go into it with a, you know, a set of values and you work through the problem. In the end, things are going to be OK. Are they going to turn out the way you want them every time? Absolutely not. But in the end, it's going to be like, oh, you're just going to look.
I always say I have more out the, you know, more out the rear view mirror than I do out the windshield at this point in my life. So maybe, bro, there's always a hundred. Yeah. Well, still, even if I, you know, even if I get there, I still got more out the rear view. But yeah, you can look back. I look back on things now that just seemed like so overwhelming. And now I just think like, how trivial is that? So that's what I would probably tell young Bobby back then.
Enjoy, enjoy what you're living in in the moment. Work through it, keep keep everything in place and move forward. If that makes sense. I totally make sense. I love it. I love it. Yeah, it's so good. So what are you what are you curious about these days? What am I curious? I'm curious what interests you now? What are you curious about? You know, yeah, I'm curious about a lot of things. I'm curious about what does the you know, because we're in this covid-19 thing right now.
And what does what does it look like when we come out of that? And how how do we how do we kind of transition to the next part of of life after covid? What does that look like for us? You know, who knew that you had to wear a mask into the grocery store? And that would be like the new norm. And so I'm curious about that.
On a personal level, I'm curious about how I talked about my you know, Robert, you talked about servant leadership and Robert Greenleaf said look first to serve and then to lead. I always try to be a servant of others, but I also have that gear to be a leader as well. So what does the next chapter of my life look like? Using the best strengths, abilities so that I can I can serve other people. You know, I don't think that you should just rest on your laurels.
I know a lot of people I'm very blessed because I get to be retired. But retirement doesn't mean that you just like sit on a porch in a rocker, knock back tall cans of cold ones or whatever, because you're just you'll flounder and you'll die anyways. You need to you need to be relevant and active and take part in life and live life so that you can help other people. Yeah, it's it's almost like what do you do with all because it's almost like what do you do with all that drive?
It takes an incredible amount of drive to retire young. And so then the drive doesn't go away. So it's like what do you do with it? Right. Yeah, the drive and the curiosity and the talent you have. And then it's like, okay, what do I now that now that the the problem of like time and money but then what do you do with talent and drive? Right. Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good way to frame it. Yeah, honestly. I don't know.
But I know I know that's that's well, I know you hit the nail on the head. You know, unfortunately, I could go back and find a second career. A lot of people do that. But I honestly I think this point in time in my life where I'm at with my faith and as a as a human being, I just want to I'm blessed that I don't you know, I don't have to go get another job so that if I can just use my my skill set, my talents, what I have to help other people, that's kind of what I want to do.
Yeah. No. Yeah. That's a whole that's a whole nother level of fulfillment and meaning. And it's a really cool chapter to be in. And so what is something that you have just that you've failed at? Oh, I asked someone the other day, they're like, you want me to pick one? Yeah. So I feel the same way. But to me, maybe pick out two that you that you want to know. To me, I think failure is the true f word. I don't it. That's good. I don't try to ever frame things as failure.
Yeah. I mean, this is life according to Bob Ramsey, which is nothing. I mean, it is what it take it with a grain of salt or living and learning. Yes. Failure to me seems so final. Like when you say I failed at this. Well, is there really a failure? It's something unless you you do something you do not succeed and then you die immediately. Failure to me is just an opportunity to to learn, to improve and to move on. So that's the way I look at failure.
And I fail every single day if you if we want to use the f word, because every day I could I could do things better. There's been so many things in my life where I could have been better, whether that's being a husband, whether that's being a father, whether that's being a friend, whether that's being an employee, whether that's being a leader, whether that's being a servant of God. How many missed opportunities have I have I had in my life?
So I don't I wouldn't even know where to begin where I talk about failures. You know, I do every day. Yeah. Oh, you and me. I mean, I did this morning and instead of working out for an hour, I worked out for 45 minutes. So to me, on so many levels, that's probably a failure. I should have got up 40. I should have got up 15 minutes earlier so I could put that in into my my routine. It's funny how that's but that's what you do when you're driven.
You know, when you're driven, you you set your own goals. Nobody sets them for you when you're driven, you set your own goals. And then you're disappointed in yourself when you don't accomplish them. And you don't you don't need somebody else to tell you. You're just like I said I was going to work out for an hour and I did 45 minutes. So it's confession time. Right. It's yeah.
Yeah. And that's that's another conversation all in itself because I think you can be so hard on yourself where it becomes, you know, paradigm paralysis or, you know, where you are you're so hard on yourself that you can never get to the next level. Yeah, I don't know. I fail all the time. Yeah, I guess if I want to use that word, gosh, I, you know, I pray every morning, God, I hope I hope I can be better today than I was yesterday. Yeah, you know.
Yeah. And that's a talking about leadership and serve. I'm a student of leadership. If you're not looking yourself in the mirror every single day and trying to see how I can improve in one way or another, then you're really, you know, you're just you're hurting yourself. I think there's something inside where you just where you want to be your best.
I think that's a great definition of success is like that you just know that you're that you're that you're absolutely trying to be your best and you kind of live with the kind of personal responsibility of that. And that's where you find a lot of your happiness when you just start to understand. Look, I'm doing the best with with what I have and I'm leveraging it to help as many people as possible. And then there's a lot of a lot of happiness in that. It's cool.
You know, so I try to learn something new every day as well. And it wasn't too long ago that we were surfing with Adam Watts and you know, Adam Watts is a great surfer. Ryan's a great surfer. I'm a very mediocre surfer. And then that surfer is the guy with the biggest smile. I would make Bobby the world champion because he smiles much more than Adam Watts. That's what Adam told me after I watched Adam drop into this barrel and just I was awestruck by like, oh, what a great.
And then I was like, oh, dude, that was so awesome. That was so sick. And then he said, oh, man, you know what, Bobby, I think you're you had the best surf session today. I was like, why is that? You always said the best surf session because, dude, you were just smiling and laughing and hooting and all that. And then the whole time I was like, yeah, that struck a chord with me because, yeah, you have to have fun with what you're doing. You know, absolutely.
If you take it so seriously all the time, like unless you're like on the pro tour and there's tons of those guys in this town. Yeah, there are actually. Well, then if you're not just enjoying what you're doing, then, yeah, nobody's ever going to pay me to surf, you know. So I should just have a good time about it. Yeah. I try not to offend other people when I'm in the lineup. Yeah. Yeah, that's a whole other podcast. Water medicated. Yeah, don't drop in on your bros.
So let's take a little bit of a right turn. What is your kind of what's your like current understanding of like the water situation in the world? Oh, man. I've been fortunate to travel some places around the world. And the things that we take for granted here in the United States, like you can go back in the old days, you know, we used to just drink out of the hose. Yeah. I know, Maria and I were talking about that. Yeah. There was a bottle of water.
Your parents, my parents were like, there's the hose in the front yard. Exactly. And I'm not going to lie, you know, like sometimes after we go surf at Trestles and I'm rinsing on my wetsuit and I'm thirsty, I'll still drink out of the hose. Cool. I don't know that that's bad or good. But in other places in the world that I've traveled, you cannot do that. And it's a major problem to try to find water that you can consume.
In a lot of ways, it goes towards the fact that there's so many third world countries where the, you know, we were in the middle of COVID-19 and I'm not trying to make light of that on any level, but different places in the world, people are not very healthy just in that they don't drink water. It's cheaper for them to drink Coca-Cola than it is to drink water. And that's why they do it. Yes, exactly.
And then so what does that do to your body when you're putting that kind of toxic stuff in your, I'm not going to lie, I love, like if I go to the movies, I love a big old gallon of Coca-Cola, but I try not to drink it very often, you know. So yeah, we take it for granted that we can get water anytime, but as I know, like, because you and I have been to El Salvador three times and I've been to other places around the world where it's a struggle to get water. It sure is.
In fact, if you look at the data from the UN, you can see that the life expectancy in the countries where people have either an access problem or a quality problem, and then you study life expectancy rates and they're like 20 to 23 years less than what it is here in the US. Yeah. And it's like putting, you know, diesel in an engine that needs unleaded. Totally. It's just going to wear, you know, we don't have, yeah, exactly. We're going to, that'll have an effect over time.
You did mention that you have traveled quite a bit and Bobby, one of the places where Bobby spent five times is to the Manawais in Indonesia. In fact, Bobby will be leading a trip through ocean water actually next March. Yes. Well, hopefully COVID's over by then so we can get there. Yeah, I think it'll be. I think they'll open up the airlines by then. And we'll be, on that trip, we'll be partnering with Kandui Surf Resort, who you know. Yes. Ray, John John, you know, all the guys there.
You know, Justice, you know, all the guys there. There's an island that's about 20 minutes away where the majority of the employees for Kandui live. A lot of employees, right. And we're going to be installing an ocean based clean water platform there on that trip. That's really exciting. I'm super stoked about it. I have such, there's such a huge place in my heart for the people in the Manawai Islands in Indonesia.
There's some of the kindest, most loving people and it's, it's one of those places where, you know, they're surrounded by water. You know, it's in, there's 18,000, about 18,000 islands in Indonesia and they're surrounded by water. But getting fresh water, when I was just there this last October, they were in a huge drought and water was at a premium and they couldn't get fresh water. And the water that they do have that they are able to get is, you know. It has high salinity.
It has high salinity. It has high salinity. So that's where our system, your system, ocean water system will be able to provide fresh drinking water for people. And then not just that. And I always, when I talk to people about ocean water, I talk to people about, yeah, it's providing drinking water, but it's also providing living water. And that's the thing that, that stokes me as well, you know.
When you're able to provide that living water, along with water that they can, you can use and they don't have to, you know, here's another thing that bothers me about the water perspective in the world is, you know, because you've, you're a surfer, but you go to certain places and the beaches are just littered with plastic bottles.
When you leave Padang, the harbor in Padang to go out to the Mentawai, that 90 mile trek across the Indian Ocean, that harbor is just loaded with plastic bottles and trash because that's the mechanism that we transport water, fresh water. And it's become so out of control that, you know, it's killing all kinds of, you know, living beings and, you know, our oceans. So that's another dynamic.
Yeah. So, yeah, well, you know, people wonder, you know, how does, how does change happen when you have a billion people in the world that have a quality, a water quality problem and an access problem? And so how do you initiate change? And the answer is it's one conversation at a time. It's one friendship at a time. And it's just, it's just one trip at a time.
And so that's one of the reasons why we do this podcast is we want, we, we want to be the voice for indigenous water rights and indigenous means local people from a country and a culture. That's what the word indigenous means. So why do we want to be a voice for those people? Because one of the things that you'll find out is that oftentimes the people that need the greatest amount of resource and help don't have a voice.
So part of being a follower of Jesus and part of being a, what I think is a true disciple is you use your, your influence and you leverage that to be a voice for the voiceless. And so I believe that if you want God to help you do something, that you've got to find something that genuinely serves and meets the needs of others. And I can't think of anything that does that better than helping people source an unlimited supply of water from the ocean.
And then with that sourcing, people can also grow their own food. It's like our friend, Simpapo, he just sent me photos two days ago. Here he is. What a great guy. What a legend. I mean, if you would have told me that, that on the last trip that Paco and I, we've been on this journey and Simpapo is our friend. We're trying to figure it out. And then we, we gave him the keys and we're like, Oh, you're in charge now. It's kind of this journey.
And then, and then he tells me the other day, I've been talking to him on the phone almost every day and he's like, I didn't know that, that I was going to be helping all 38 families in Palmar Ceto get water and food literally seven days after we left in March. So that's awesome. And again, you know, but I really, but I How many of the disciples didn't know that the journey they were going on. Well, you and me, you and me both, it's like, you never really know what you're getting into.
So you kind of do like a reluctant, what I call like a reluctant you. Yes. You're like, Oh yeah, cool. Yeah, I'll go like, like Ivan told me, he's like, yeah, when you asked me to read, read, read the Bible every day, I like, I didn't even know what I was getting into. And that, but that's just like God, God just asks us to do a little bit and then that starts like a journey. But yeah, it is really exciting.
One of the ways that, that you can, that you can get involved if you're interested in, in going to Indonesia with us is we do, we do have a link on our website. If you go to, if you go to oceanwater.com and that's both CNWTR.com. There's a link on there. If you click on trips, this is important because we only have 12 spots on this one. We're, we're probably more, because I've been thinking about this. Oh, cool. So there's can do and then there's can do resorts, which is right around the corner.
If we had enough support and enough help, then we could, there's enough resorts there that we can figure it out. It's a party. Well, it's, it'll be a party. Yeah. It'll be party to help other people. It'll be, you'll definitely get good waves if you go. And just the, the number of lives that you can positively impact, that will be great in itself. I love it, dude. New tagline at Ocean Water, a party to help other people. Party to help other people. That's awesome, man.
Do you, I just want to say thank you on behalf of everybody who's going to hear this today. Thanks for taking like the time. You're the graduate from the school of hard knocks and you've got a lot of humility and just so much to offer. And if you do me a favor, if you'll come back again, like next month and we just, again, we just want to start to be a voice into this space and it starts like a conversation at a time. I know you, I know. And thank you so much, man.
And just, again, it just, it's like a conversation at a time, a friend at a time, a trip at a time. And we'll just keep, we'll just keep going down that road. Let's crush it. Let's crush it, bro. Thank you. You guys, thanks so much for being with us today. I hope you got something out of it and we'll catch you again tomorrow.